PD Design Summit

Toward the end of this past week we went to Munich with the Product Design team from Designit for a summit with the other Product teams from Designit. It was my first time in München, and of course we did some of the typical touristy things while we were there.

Hofbräuhaus - apparently one of the more (most?) well known brewhouses in Munich, with lots of tourists going in just to take pictures, let alone sit down form some food, and grab a LITRE of beer.

Camera fun with big beer glasses

Ein Maß - What a 1 Litre glass of beer looks like (mind you I do have kinda big hands)

Peering into 1L of beer

Hofbräuhaus Maß

BMW Museum - (and BMW headquarters in the tower)

Rolls Spirit of Ecstasy - The special Rolls Royce exhibit on at the museum

British Green Rolls

A very handsome Rolls Royce Coupé

Classic Rolls wheel detail

Another handsome classic Rolls

Spare wheel detail

Rolls Royce Phantom

Rolls Royce Ghost - The newest model

Front corner 3/4 - Rolls Royce Ghost

Wheel detail - Rolls Royce Ghost

Rear light detail - Rolls Royce Ghost

Exhaust detail - classic BMW Motorrad

Detail - classic BMW Motorrad

Single cylinder (pre war?) - classic BMW Motorrad

Side detail - classic BMW Motorrad

3/15PS - BMW Dixi, 1930

Classic coupé with interesting hood latch detail

BMW racing - looks like a bit of abstract art, or a rorschach

Rear detail - BMW racing

500cc BMW 'kneeler ' - ridden in a kneeling position set a world speed record in 1937 of 279,5km/h

'The predecessor' - to the 2002 and 3 series

Evolution of the 3-series - front ends

Kinetic sculpture - a cool kinetic sculpture

3 Series front corner detail - in clay



Classic roadster - BMW 328 from above, 1936



Bonnet detail - BMW 328 roadster



Front detail - BMW 328 roadster

Flank detail - BMW 507, 1956

Front corner detail - BMW 507, 1956

A classic reinvented - BMW Z8 roadster, 1999 (possibly one of my favourite modern BMW's, still)

Front detail from above - BMW Z8

Flank detail - BMW Z8

Rear 3/4 - BMW Z8, a very handsome car

1937 BMW 328 Mille Miglia - for me, quite possibly one of the most beautiful BMW's ever

Front 3/4 - BMW 328 Mille Miglia

Front Detail - BMW 328 Mille Miglia

A beautifully sculpted form - BMW 328 Mille Miglia

Rear detail - BMW 328 Mille Miglia

Hood detail - BMW 328 Mille Miglia

Front detail - BMW 328 Mille Miglia

Even the wheels have a beautiful simplicity to them - BMW 328 Mille Miglia

Faired rear wheel - BMW 328 Mille Miglia

BMW i8 concept - the future vision of electric cars from BMW

Rear light form detail - BMW i8

An eclectic icon - BMW Isetta, 1955

Front 3/4 - BMW Isetta

BMW Welt (World) - experience centre with the modern current offerings from the BMW Group

Metro 40 street furniture, bench - BMW DesignworksUSA

Metro 40 street furniture, street advertising - BMW DesignworksUSA

Sculpted forms, tank detail - BMW R1200GS adventure

More sculpted forms detailing - BMW R1200GS adventure

Me growing more and more fond of motorcycles - on the BMW R1200GS adventure (feels about the right size)

Hiking with cows (you can take the boy outta the country...)

The guy I'm renting my room from in Oslo has a friend with a dairy farm in the mountains in Norway, and every year at the end of the summer they walk the cows from the summer farm higher up in the mountains, down to the winter farm, in a lower valley. I was invited to come along for this unique experience.

Norway has lots of tunnels, this was also me playing with the camera

Finndalen - the valley where the summer farm is located, with the farmhouse in the foreground

The summer farm

Curious cows - roughly the first 2 hours of the hike is going through this valley, with the cows straying from the road more often then you'd care for

Above the tree-line vegetation

The cows figured it out - after a certain point, the cows understand what's going on, know the routine, and just follow the path

Mountain blueberries - not sure if these were the edible type, I didn't venture a try

Mountain plateau - view from somewhere up on the mountain, enjoying the view to the other mountains and the spots of sun

If a cow can do it - it's a long hike, but the cows seemed to manage ok

First glimpses toward the valley where the winter (main) farm is

Down is the hard part - the view was spectacular, and crazy to see the farms looking so tiny so far down below, going down the mountain is particularly hard on the joints

Main farm - (winter farm)

Main farm - the view at the main farm, looking further down the valley

Skjåk - roughly the location where the farm is, and also across the river is where they make Norway's famous Brunost (brown cheese)

Old stave church - Lom

Stave church interior - apparently one of the oldest stave churches in Norway

Lom - rapids/waterfall in the town of Lom, a very picturesque and touristy location

Reindeer crossing? or beware of reindeer on the road (or is it elk/moose?)

Scenic route home - drove through a nice section of mountains for a bit of a scenic route back to Oslo

Rock strewn landscape, with mountains in the background

Small mountain waterfalls

More scenic vistas - that's actually a tiny village down by the water, so you see the water is actually a ways away here

Less mountainous scenery - it still puzzles me how people farm here

† Jules

Jules was sick, and had to be put down. This was very difficult for everyone in my family, as it seemed to come all of a sudden. We were deeply saddened by this. I'm sure it's largely in his absence you notice how much such a sweet dog as him has an affect on your life. Even with me living across the Atlantic when it happened, I had a hard time with it.
We'll miss you Jules.

Sometimes a beautiful sad song is a great thing for something like this. This is one of my favourites.

Moved.... again. This time: Oslo

Moved to Oslo on the 8th, and started my next and final internship on the 12th of August at Designit Oslo. This will be my last and final internship before returning to Umeå in January to do my thesis project and complete my Masters degree, before returning to the real world, finding myself a real job somewhere, and hopefully no longer moving around but rather settling down in one spot for a while.

Oslo is beautiful and I was glad to be able to catch the tale end of summer upon arriving here.

For anyone needing my new digits:

William van Beek

Enerhauggata 7

0651 Oslo

Norway

Evening in the 'hood - catching some perfect evening light to play with the new camera, and explore the city a bit

Park view - this park is actually right next to the apartment building I'm living in, and I look down on the park

Shadows and light - it really was the perfect lighting to take pictures

Catching a moment - just playing with the camera

Opera house at sunset

Opera house inside, city reflection outside

Oslo Central Station

Illuminated bicycle stands - half art, half public furniture, has a nice effect with stainless steel bicycle sculptures as bicycle stands, complete with red LED tail lights...

And white LED headlights

Summer 'vacation', between internships

Finished my internship with Atlas Copco mid/late June and headed to Canada for some 'vacation' between internships. July was a long, warm, busy, and stressful month at home. Love my family and glad I had the chance to visit, as well as hopefully help carry the load to make things less stressful and a bit easier on everyone on the farm. The big stress causing thing was of course the new barn construction, with all of it's issues and hick-ups to say the least. I'll be very happy for them once they are finally milking in the new barn.

One of the first days of pre-fab installation on site.

Beautiful structure, that pre-fab stuff.

It will be one very big barn, when it's done.

A multi-cultural herd - combo of Holsteins and Brown Swiss, both of which are super cute as calves

Muskoka holiday - the end of my time in Canada was spent at Lindsey's cottage up in Muskoka, and after all the stress built up through July, this was a much needed, and very great little vacation!

Who doesn't like ducks?

 

Pseudo wedding table setting

Pseudo wedding cupcakes

Grace and Dan - happily married, at the pseudo wedding party we had in Muskoka

Light writing - if my photography skills would have been better with my new camera, I may have been able to better capture them making a heart with the sparklers

IDEA 2013 Bronze!

Last year (2012) I was a finalist in the IDEA awards with my Dispatch Mining Utility Vehicle concept, and this year I won an IDEA Bronze with my Hydrologic water recycling laundry system concept.

Hydrologic - IDEA 2013 Bronze

Hydrologic - a bit of an idea behind how the closed loop water filtration system is intended to work.

In case you missed it earlier, this video is a quick little teaser/introduction to the concept:



Hydrologic is a closed loop laundry system that is not connected to the home’s water infrastructure. The water inside runs through a series of filters and bio filters to be recycled in a continuous loop, thus preventing any harmful chemicals from entering the water system.